5 Essential Insights on How to Meet Girls in Groups

A buddy of mine recently asked me to write on how to meet girls in groups, as it's something I don't talk about a great deal on here. The most I've touched on the topic before has been in "Breaking Circle," the post on maintaining attraction despite distractions around you or even other people trying interrupt you.

But, as my friend noted, I haven't gotten a proper treatment on meeting women in groups up yet, so this is it.

Meeting girls in groups is one of those things that, assuming you're doing much nighttime approaching, you're going to run into reasonably regularly. In fact, it may very well be the meat and potatoes of your approaches -- you might just find yourself in groups most of the time.

Groups aren't ideal, of course. Things tend to move faster and more smoothly the majority of the time when it's just you and your girl, and there are no interruptions or distractions to knock the two of you off course.

However, when handled appropriately, any negatives of groups can usually be negated, and in fact you can sometimes even get groups working for you with the women you meet. So it doesn't always have to be unfortunate that that pretty girl you like is in the middle of a group -- sometimes groups make it even easier for the two of you to get together.

Meeting Girls in Groups is More Work

Personal note on this one: I typically prefer meeting women who are either alone, or who are in a loose group they're easily peeled off from.

Why? Because meeting a girl entrenched in her group is work.

I come from a background of optimizing things for efficiency. I don't like spending a lot of time on anything. Plus, I had it happen to me enough times in the past -- you spend hours on a girl, or managing a group, only to have it go nowhere, when you could've been doing something else instead (like, talking to a girl who really was interested!). Frustrating.

Part of that's just experience; it takes time in-field to learn how to recognize which women are interested in you (see "How Girls Show Interest"), learn how to tell if a girl is horny, learn how to identify which groups are more protective and which are more laissez-faire about what the members of their group do, and which women are likely to buck an overprotective group (or jealous guy friends with crushes on them) if they really like you.

And there's no substitute for experience and the intuition it builds within you. The only way to get it, of course, is just to go out and have enough experiences that you build that intuition within yourself and become able to accurately gauge the situations you find yourself in.

But the rest of it's just taking a moment to access your in-built common sense. I mean really, if a girl's dancing like crazy and surrounded by six of her closest gal pals, do you really think you stand a better chance of taking her home than a girl who's over sitting quietly next to a friend she's hardly talking to, scanning the room, and clearly hoping to meet someone? Of course not. Avoiding groups is usually preferential.

A few months back, I was out with a friend, and he really wanted to be social and get meeting people, so he jumped in with a big group and started hanging at their table and talking to everyone. I found this somewhat boring, and just chilled there sipping my drink. I was the quiet guy staring off into space as my buddy lit up the whole group. He spent about an hour and a half looking to make some inroads with the cute girl of the group, and she did like him a good bit, but we left to get food and when we came back she was gone.

The next night, we went out to the same place, and right away I met a really cute girl who I could tell was looking to meet someone. She was with one friend, who didn't mind the two of us sneaking off together, and the girl and I were lovers under an hour after I met her.

It's just more efficient and a lot more effective to meet women not entrenched in big groups. Things move faster, easier... better.

But what if everyone's in a group, and you're dead set on meeting a girl? Or what if the girl you really, really want is in a group?

Well, then it's time to put your group stuff into action. More work usually, but sometimes it's the only way to get what you want. And if you follow the steps I have for you a little later in this post, you're going to optimize group work as much as possible and save yourself a lot of time, a lot of hassle -- and capitalize on a lot of opportunities you otherwise might've missed.

Throwing Out "Group Theory"

A while back, there was something in pick up artist circles called "group theory," and its proponents held to a certain number of tenets for when it came to how to meet girls in groups. This is no relation to the group theory of mathematics, mind you; but some of the early pick up guys were into programming and math and things of that nature, so you'll hear terms with similar names to those fields bandied about in the social arena. The tenets for early pick up's group theory were as follows:

You must engage the leader of the group first

You must win over everyone in the entire group

You must ignore the girl you want until you've won over everyone else

If that sounds complicated, circuitous, and counterintuitive, that's because it is.

I have my own theory about all the early theories in the social arts. My theory is that the guys who came up with them in the early days really, honestly thought that meeting women was really, really hard, and that there must be some sort of really complicated set of laws and dynamics underlying everything that had to be explained by equally complicated, counterintuitive social machinations one should follow.

Generally though, I find that, past a certain point, the more complicated you make something, and the more rules and laws you add to stuff, the tougher it gets to pull off, and the less likely it is to succeed.

In warfare, there's something called the "Three-Pronged Attack." This is when an army divides itself into three branches, or "prongs," and attacks from three different directions. The "Two-Pronged Attack," where an army attacks from two directions, tends to be a consistently successful strategy, as the enemy's forces get sandwiched between two attacking armies, or confronted by one and flanked by the other. So, you'd think that the 3-pronged version of this same attack would be killer... right?

Well, the three-pronged attack almost always, always fails. The army that divides itself into two parts, throughout history, often wins. The army that divides itself into three parts, throughout history, ends up losing. Why? It's because the strategy's just too damn complicated, and the world doesn't like complicated strategies. Nothing ever goes according to plan, and the more moving parts your plan has, the easier it is to get a monkey wrench jammed in there somewhere in the operation and foul up the whole darn thing.

That's what happens with this "group theory." It takes something -- meeting girls in groups -- that needs a bit of strategy applied to it to work best, and then just WAY overcomplicates things by introducing too many crazy wild attacks. And then it fails.

All right, there are probably a few guys out there who've used the traditional group theory and had it work for them. But if you're one of those guys, trust me, you're one of about four guys on Earth who can say he's made it work, and who knows if that was skill or just luck.

For everybody else, we need a somewhat simpler approach to groups. Or at least, I know I sure do.

I want to talk a little more about the specifics of group theory though, and why those specifics're bad ideas.

Fallacy #1: You must engage the leader of the group first

This one's the least harmful of the three rules mentioned above, but it's still going to be less effective than other paths to getting your girl if you're an experienced guy, and it's probably going to be downright detrimental to you if you're a newer guy or intermediate.

Why's it so ineffective to engage the leader of the group first? Well, think about it like this. Have the leader -- the alpha male or the alpha female -- of the group on your side is generally a good idea. If the leader likes you, the rest of the group will at least tolerate your presence, and they'll be more inclined to lower their defenses and like you and accept you themselves.

But if you're talking to the leader first, you're communicating to the group that the person you're most interested in getting to know is him.Not the cute girl off to the side. Yes, it may catch her interest if you do things that way, but there's an even better chance she writes you off as some guy who's just being a social butterfly, or even starts auto-rejecting because you ignored her to talk to him instead. And on top of that, while you're busily getting to know the leader of the group and/or distracting him or her, another guy hanging around nearby with his eye on the girl you like may just take the opportunity to swoop in and grab her, mentally thanking you for being his unwitting "wingman."

In other words, the downsides are:

People usually assume you're just being social

Women can auto-reject because they feel neglected

Other men angling for the woman you like may snap her up while you're busy

That's Fallacy #1. Here's Fallacy #2:

Fallacy #2: You must win over everyone in the entire group

Of the three rules, this one's the one that bugs me the most when I see guys doing it, and this one's the one that bugs me most when I'm out with a group of people and a random jumps into our group and tries to "install" himself. Seriously dude, just talk to the girl you want to talk to, you don't have to try and chat my ear off and make me your buddy. You're not going to accomplish that with a few minutes of chit-chat, anyway.

Back to you doing it. I did this plenty of times when I started out; it really does sound like good advice. Get everyone in the group on your side, and no one will stand in your way with the girl you like. Sounds great, right?

Except it doesn't work that way. If you recall the term "fixtures" I used in the post on hooking up with friends, you'll remember that I discuss how it's better to stay on the periphery of a girl's circle until you're ready to get to know her and move things forward with her. The reason why is because once a girl's been exposed to you enough, she's going to slot you a role in the social environment around her.

And if she sees you being super social with everyone and winning over her group and all her friends liking you, she's going to slot you as "part of the group." And that's bad because, as mentioned in that post above, girls don't sleep with men from their groups.

They sleep with men from the periphery of their groups. Not from within them.

So, you go and you do all that work to become a part of a girl's group, and then in the end you find that you can't get anywhere with her.

Guys that go this route have only themselves to blame for it, though they rarely are aware of why things played out the way they did.

Finally, our last "group theory" fallacy:

Fallacy #3: You must ignore the girl you want until you've won over everyone else

This fallacy is the most deadly one of the three, and it's made more deadly by the "positive reinforcement" it seems to get.

So, generally, if you walk up to a group and win over the whole group and only then start talking to the girl you like, yes, generally, she's going to be friendly to you. The early guys testing this approach out drew the conclusion then that this worked; waiting to talk to the girl you liked last was the safest, highest percentage method.

But highest percentage for what?

Highest percentage of her being friendly to you, that is.

We talked about this in the post on reactions from women vs. results with women; reactions do not equal results. Just because a girl is friendly with you does not by any stretch of the imagination mean she wants to go to bed with you.

But those early guys, they saw friendly reactions, and said to themselves, "Aha! I've found something that works!"

Except, for what they were really going for -- getting girls in bed with them as lovers and girlfriends -- it doesn't work.

Like we discussed under the points above, going that circuitous route of being the friendly, likeable, sociable guy is great for getting a friendly reception, and it's okay if you want to get a girl to just be friends with you. But yeah, no, it ain't so good if you're looking to come off as a strong, sexy beast that women can't resist wanting to tear the clothes off of.

Women admire boldness and confidence and directness. They don't like guys who dance around and maneuver and try to slide under the radar. Those group theory guys designed their group theory to do just that; it's designed to slip under the radar of women who have their "shields" up.

Even among beautiful, well-dressed, in-demand women in nightclubs though, it's easier to learn how to show direct interest and get them interested in you -- regardless of your looks; I've seen lots of guys you might not think pull it off -- than it is to slip under the radar and come out a winner. Trying to go under the radar blows up in the faces of the guys who try it -- because women know what they're doing. And it ends up looking awkward and bad, which is the opposite of what's attractive to women.

How to Meet Girls in Groups and Have it Work

I have my own rules for meeting girls in groups. And they work really well for me. Want to know what they are?

Start talking first to the girl you most want to get to know.

Be cool with her friends if introduced, but don't be the one who breaks circle.

Keep the lion's share of your attention focused on your girl and don't be away from talking to her for long for any reason.

Don't try to be the new alpha -- treat the guys in the group already with respect.

Avoid talking to the "group" or addressing people as a collective ("Hey guys!"). Address people as individuals -- nobody responds to "Hey guys!"

People respect this so much more than the indirect approach, and boy, does it work better.

Need an example? All right, let's say this. You're out at a bar one night with a group of your friends, including a cute, single gal pal of yours. Two guys approach.

Guy #1:

Guy #1 walks up to you, and starts trying to chat you up in the midst of your group because you're clearly the leader. He jokes around with you and tries to make some small talk, while all your friends stand around watching. He addresses the group too, when he senses you aren't biting. And if it goes okay and he gets an okay reception, he then turns to your cute single gal pal, then turns back to you and asks if it's okay if he borrows her for a minute.

Guy #2:

Guy #2 walks up to your cute single gal pal and starts talking to her. You're talking to your other friends, and you notice he and your gal pal have started talking, but that's her business. Maybe you decide to see if this guy's cool, so you introduce yourself and ask his name. He's chill, calm, and makes a little polite chit chat with you, all the while keeping his body language largely pointed at your gal pal, and she's keeping her body language largely pointed at him. He seems like an all right guy, you figure, and it looks like they're enjoying talking to one another, so you decide to get back to talking with the rest of your friends and leave the two of them to their conversation. Eventually, they head off to sit somewhere; if you've talked to the guy before, he tells you, "Hey man, we're going to go grab a seat over there. Didn't want you wondering where we disappeared to." You thank him for the heads up, and off they go.

No comparison, right? See how much smoother and more natural and less invasive / socially awkward Guy #2's approach feels?

And what's really neat is that cool recognizes cool. When you approach this way, you're clearly doing things the most effortless, sprezzatura-driven way you possibly could. People just like that a lot better. They can tell if their female friend likes you, and most folks, unless they're super uncool, won't interfere.

I used to have a lot more girls pull their girlfriends away when I tried talking to the "group" or when I tried to be sociable / indirect than I did once I started focusing my energies largely on the girl I actually wanted to meet. In fact, I almost never get girls dragging their girlfriends away from me anymore.

Not only that. When you're the cool guy, and a girl's friends can clearly see that she likes you, they will often, often try and help the two of you get together. And that seems to be everywhere in the world. This happens to me when I'm in the States, and this happens to me when I'm in Asia, and both are very different cultures. I've had people tell me how you have to win over the friends in America because most people aren't that cool, and I've had people tell me you can't pull Asian girls when their friends are around in Asia because it's too conservative for that.

Nope. Wrong on both counts. Try again.

If you seem cool, calm, and self-possessed, and you make no bones about going for the girl you want, and she clearly wants you too, and you're cool with the friends when they engage you but you're not the first to break circle and you're friendly but not too friendly and clearly eager to get back to talking to the girl you like, people get it. And they'll help you, much of the time.

First time this happened to me was in San Francisco in fall of 2007. I'd been trying to do the "social guy talking to everybody" thing for a long time until a short while prior to then, and then I decided, "Screw it, this doesn't work, I'm just going for the girl I want."

So, I found myself at a bar at closing time one night, and there were three girls leaning up against an open window looking out onto the street. I started talking to one, and I just talked to her. Not her friends; I didn't ask her to introduce me; I didn't introduce her to my friends or my friends to her; I just talked to her. And then I asked her to sit, and we went and sat. Her two girlfriends each came by briefly as we were seated to check up on her, and she introduced us and we said our hellos and then they were on their ways again.

The bar closed, and my friends all left. I went outside with this girl, her two girlfriends, and a big number of guy friends of hers (I think there were eight guys total, maybe?). She gave me introductions to the other guys, and then she and I went back to talking. It seemed one of the guys was a bartender, and he could bring some people back to his bar for an after party -- but only five people. So, the three girls were in -- I just hung back and chilled and figured my night was over. My girl joined the conference of the girls and the bartender talking things out, and then she came back to me.

"Only five people can go with him," she said. "I'm making sure that you're coming with us too."

I was pleasantly surprised. "Oh, cool," I said. "Thanks!"

The bartender, the three girls, another guy friend of theirs, and I all started walking toward the bar. Then, halfway to the bar, the bartender got a phone call that he was unhappy about. "Damn it!" he said. "He told me I can only bring four people."

I figured that meant I was out. I hadn't even talked to this guy; why would he bring me? But I stayed chill and kept my mouth shut. He turned to his guy friend: "Sorry bro," he said, "I can't bring you." The guy friend turned sadly off and trudged away to go hail a cab.

I was stunned. Why the hell was I brought into this select group of people who got to head to a bar after hours and drink the bar's alcohol for free when I hadn't actively worked to win anyone over other than my girl?

Well, I ended up at the bar, and then I ended up at the bartender's place later with my girl, and then I ended up at her place, and I took her as my lover there.

I got the girl because I didn't come off as the crazy guy working his ass off to try and win everybody over and ingratiate himself. Instead, I just won my girl over, and everybody saw it, and I was cool enough with them that they figured if their gal pal liked me and I liked her it was a good thing and they should help the two of us get together.

Also worth noting is that when a girl feels like you're close with her group, she'll expect you to fend for yourself. But when you've predominantly talked to her, and she likes you a lot, she'll stand up and go to bat for you as your "representative" in the group. This works a heck of a lot better on a number of levels than you having to do it yourself, not the least of which include:

She becomes increasingly invested in you as she goes to bat for you more

The two of you grow closer and closer in an "us vs. the world" type scenario

The group puts more stock in her going to bat for you than you going to bat for yourself

I've slept with a fair number of girls from groups I've met since that night in San Francisco, and it's always gone this way. The friends see the girl and I talking; introduce themselves perhaps and we talk briefly (or sometimes I never even meet the friends at all), and then they back off and it's like the girl and I were there alone.

And when this happens (and it happens a lot when you're following those five steps), it makes it even more likely that you and your girl get together than if you met her alone -- because despite not even talking to them, you've managed to get her friends' express approval.

They see her engrossed in conversation with you, and you seem cool, so they stay hands off. She notices them not interfering and instead giving their express approval, and interprets that to mean they think you're a quality guy and she feels more comfortable around you and likes you more and is more willing to let things take their natural course.

Then all you've got to do is invite her home.

Sometimes -- and it's always funny when it happens -- the friends will even suggest that the two of you go somewhere together themselves.

Just remember,

Start talking first to the girl you most want to get to know.

Be cool with her friends if introduced, but don't be the one who breaks circle.

Keep the lion's share of your attention focused on your girl and don't be away from talking to her for long for any reason.

Don't try to be the new alpha -- treat the guys in the group already with respect.

Avoid talking to the "group" or addressing people as a collective ("Hey guys!"). Address people as individuals -- nobody responds to "Hey guys!"

Oh, and group theory? Tell the indirect guys to archive that one and start using this stuff instead. They'll thank you for it!

Yours,
Chase Amante

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Comments

Hey chase, i found this interesting- "Hey man, we're going to go grab a seat over there. Didn't want you wondering where we disappeared to." -How often do you let the members of the group know you are going somewhere else with the girl? And do you ever just not say anything to the group and leave with the girl?

If I've interacted with the group a little, and especially if I have a bit of a connection with one or more of the members, I'll just about always let them know we're heading off for a moment. Just as common courtesy, and it seems to me that most folks appreciate it and are less likely to block you later and more likely to jump on your side. It also prevents them getting surprised and asking you where you're going if you start leaving unannounced.

On the other hand, if I've only talked to the girl and not to the group (or very little to the group), I won't address them / update them at all, and instead will just leave with the girl. In that instance, it's because I'm wary of seeming like I'm trying to force the connection or be over-nice or seek permission by letting them know.

So I'd say:

If we have a connection, I'll let them know as a courtesy and as a sign of social grace, but

Thanks Chase, this is great stuff. It makes so much sense. Way too many times I have opened a group by addressing the whole group. Then I let my attention drift from the girl I'm interested in. And it NEVER works. Definitely a case of overthinking / working too hard.

Last night there was this girl I knew, I wanted to potentially try and move things forward with her but she was with a group of her friends. How can you move faster and get a girl whom you already know but is with her friends?

Hey Chase!
I have read a lot of your articles and I found them great because I do a lot of things like you, but I still need to improve in some areas e.g be a better closer I miss a lot of my chances..some days/night I'm great others I suck.

But there are some points where I'm not agree, but yeah its different from person to person.

I would say the approach group can be done in different ways. I have try kind of different approaches to a group, with a good succes.
I would say that you could opening the group with a bit funny approach, as long you do it with class, and then go for the girl. But I'm agree as long you dont like the "entertainer "

Ps. Sry for my english grammar
Kind regards from Denmark, ps. here the girls can take the lead :)

I was just curious about how you would open a group of girls (say, 3 girls standing in a music shop at the mall). Would you use a direct opener for the girl you're interested in or would the social pressure be too high for a girl surrounded by her friends to accept you hitting on her? Girls are way more likely to try and preserve social status around their friends, so how would you disarm this?

I run into girls that are with one other girl quite often. I feel like I'm missing out on some opportunities to learn my pickup by letting these girls get away. I love the idea of going up to the girl you like in a group and talking to her. That makes the most sense. But what do you do if there are only two people present? Won't the other person feel alienated and angry and try to pull her away from me?